


Sunset / Sunrise

by Princestarley



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, If you only read one work by me, Minor Injuries, One sided romance if you squint, The Glamour Springs Incident, Unreliable Narrator, disproportionate retribution, lazer guided amnesia, mass murder implied, unrequited feelings if you squint real hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23603296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princestarley/pseuds/Princestarley
Summary: To Sazed, Taako had always been bright and brilliant like the sun. Independent, resplendent, competent. More than he could ever be. But he sure as hell could try to make him better than he'd ever be alone.When someone leaves your life, they are never truly forgotten. After all, how can you forget the person who stoked your fire? How could you ever forget your heart? Some weeks out from Glamour Springs, a master chef is making a new recipe.Taako remembers an old business venture. Sazed proposes a new one.
Relationships: Sazed & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Sunset / Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for cooking related injuries and Sazed doing what Sazed does.
> 
> I hope this fic doesn't make it sound like I like or sympathize with Sazed because I Don't.

Nights with the wagon were often the same for Taako and Sazed. A campfire crackled underneath the stars above, the two moons dancing overhead as embers and smoke reached towards the sky to join them. Sazed stoked the fire quietly, lost in contemplation. The fire usually didn’t make him this hot. Why was he sweating? He kept glancing from the fire to the wagon. Maybe he should put on something lighter. A breeze passed by, causing the wind chimes hanging above the porch area to sing softly. Sazed went back to his fire. 

Taako could see all of this from the window. He could read every last emotion on Sazed’s face from where he was. But this wasn’t his focus. The Curtains billowed out slightly as he swung the window open, preparing the area for another meal. 

Taako had episodes. Moods. Trances. He and Sazed were never quite sure what to call it other than strokes of genius. Taako would sometimes just find himself compelled to make something. It barely registered as he grabbed spices that he had never combined in his life and effortlessly combined them into something new, something amazing, a symphony of smell and taste and presentation no one had ever seen before. 

To Sazed, everything about Taako was perfect. Perfect hair, perfect face, perfect teeth, perfect personality. When he first met Taako, this veneer was all he could see. Just a brilliant, resplendent figure, too much to take in yet too wonderful to bear to look away. Some days, his assistant would walk into the wagon to change some days to find various ingredients strewn about the counter. Taako, for once, was disheveled and unkempt as he kept trying and trying again to grasp at the one piece of the puzzle he was missing, and Sazed could see the cracks in his persona that were, though he hated to admit it, always there. Sometimes Taako would search for days for the perfect spice, the exact fruit at the precise ripeness, the meat that just naturally tasted as though it were spiced with saffron if cooked just so. Sometimes Taako would never find it, and though he couldn’t paint a picture with a meal, he could often do just as well with his words. 

Sazed joked sometimes that Taako had some sort of way to communicate with some other world because “There was no way these recipes could have ever have existed here in Faerun.” He’d laugh and put an arm around Taako, pulling the elf close. He wouldn’t laugh. He wouldn’t smile. The joke never landed, for some reason. Taako’s eyes would glaze over for a moment and it was like the joke never happened.

But right now, Taako was hard at work. There would be time for poorly made jokes about strange places Taako could have never gone later. Right now he was creating something beautiful. The blending of magic and dexterous skill came to him as easily as breathing. He deboned a fish with the effortless glide of a blade. A crust of spices and honey based glaze were laid tenderly on its surface. Now all he needed to do was cook it. In a flash of inspiration, he quickly made a small pile of kindling below the meat and ignited it, forming the flame into a Phoenix before it vanished in a flash.

Taako found himself broadsided with a flurry of emotions, leaving him dazed and confused. He needed to focus. With trembling hands- why was he trembling?- he grabbed a root vegetable and began to chop. Focus on the task at hand, Taako. 

Chop. Chop. Chop. 

He swears he hears laughter. A pure, unfiltered chortle, not unlike his own. When was the last time he laughed like that?

Chop, chop, chop. 

More memories flood in. Cooking in tandem with another, a counterpoint to his own. Every backbeat as the metronome ticks, every rest as his heart beat. A show unlike any other. Just the two of them, against the world and showing everyone what they’re capable of.

Chop chop chop.

He was always alone. He was always alone. Every time he tries to turn in his thoughts, the flash of brilliant red hair is the only proof she- she? _Who?_ \- was there. But he’s always been alone. 

Chop-Chop-Chop. 

Taako tried to reach out. He tried to grab her by the shoulder and turn her around, so he could see her face, but you can’t grab onto mist. You can’t grasp what isn’t truly there. 

Chopchopchopchopchop—

“Taako, are you crying?”

_Slice._

Taako let out an expletive as he was wrenched from his trance. The already shaky visage of the woman in his mind was quickly snuffed out. If the tears weren’t flowing before they certainly were now as Garnet red blood oozed from the cut on his finger. 

“Ah, shit—” Sazed had been standing in the door for only a few moments, watching as Taako absentmindedly minced the potato into finer and finer pieces until they were nearly nothing beneath his blade. He didn’t mean to scare him. Usually something like talking didn’t faze Taako in the slightest- after all, the pyrotechnics they’d use during particularly extravagant shows were often on an entirely different caliber of loud. Sazed quickly sprung into action, first handing Taako a clean rag, then going through his alchemy cabinet until he pulled out a salve. He took Taako’s hand and examined the wound after ridding it of blood- nothing permanent, and nothing that would obstruct his ability to cook. He quickly smeared the gel-like substance on the wound, and watched as it slowly began to knit itself together. 

“Thanks for the healing. Guess I just got caught up in the moment and didn’t realize you came in,” Taako’s voice was flat and dull. Sazed looked at his face- completely inscrutable. Sazed said nothing, so Taako continued. “Do you want something?”

Sazed’s stomach was writhing within him, coiling and making knots and contorting in ways he never thought possible. There’s no harm in asking. There’s no harm in asking. It’s just Taako, your boss and hopeful future coworker. Your best friend, Taako. The man that knows you better than anyone, Taako. He swallowed the scream of anxiety building in his throat and started his rehearsed speech. 

“Taako, we’ve been working together for a long time, and I’ve been- don’t get me wrong, I love working under you, but I’ve been thinking. I’ve never really had a knack for magic like you do, I mean, what you can do with a wave of a wand is something I could never... never ever comprehend,” Sazed looked to Taako’s face, begging for some sort of positive reaction. Nothing. And still, he forged on. You’ve already made the jump, Sazed. You need to see this through to the end. “But between the cooking lessons and my alchemy practice, I feel like I’ve made some serious progress towards something different, something, I think, is just as good. People seem to really, really like me up on stage, Taako, I’m no show stealer, but I really think I could add something to the performances. As it is, I feel like your show has something-” Sazed searched for the right word. He licked his lips before continuing. “Something from your show is missing.”

 _Something missing._ The raw, dull pulse of pain in his finger no longer registered to him as Taako felt his heart tighten and wail in unfiltered, searing despondency. Taako wasn’t entirely sure what his face was trying to do- his upper lip curled in some strange mixture of a grimace, a snarl, and what he almost wished was a polite smile but would never, ever look the part. The barking, derisive, laughter that burst from him caused Sazed’s heart to tighten and drop deep, deep down within him.

“Taako, I’m not joking--” Sazed’s voice had become increasingly strained over the course of his sales pitch, and finally, found itself cracking under the strain. Another break in the veneer. His face was hot and red, (From the fire still, he wanted to believe,) and he found his voice raising. “I’m not joking! I-”

“Sazed,” Taako clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder after the peals of laughter quieted down, and Sazed’s words died in his throat. “Let’s talk finances.” Taako picked up his wand from the dining table, and with a flick of his wrist -still, entirely inscrutable to Sazed- lifted the Ledger that Taako meticulously kept, flipping open to a graph he gestured to with the wand in his hand. “See this? This is the cost of merchandising. You know how much it would cost to go through a whole brand change? To slap your name and face onto every piece of merch we have, or god forbid, make entirely new designs? It would just eat into our bottom line, and that’s assuming we end up turning enough of a profit to break even when you’re brought on as a mainstay. I hate to say it, but shaking up something that isn’t broken isn’t always good showbiz.”

“So I’m not good enough for you, then?” The heat on Sazed’s face was neither from the fire nor the embarrassment and shame he felt from daring to believe that he could ever exist on the same level as wonderful, perfect, impossible to look at Taako. His voice was low, his body tense. Every muscle coiled in anticipation- torn between running and never looking back and striking Taako down where he stood, Sazed found himself instead completely and utterly immobilized by his own sheer rage. Taako froze mid gesture, and stared at Sazed, lips parted slightly as he searched for what to say.

“That isn’t what I...” Taako broke eye contact, his voice suddenly soft as it dawned on him exactly how he sounded talking to his business partner. “Sazed, I’m--”

“I’m not good enough,” Sazed’s assertion rested just below a yell and quickly rising to a fever pitch- a liberty he could afford as it was likely no one was around for miles. Taako looked disarmed, taken aback as his platitudes were drowned out less in volume and more in passion. Hot tears had started streaming from Sazed’s eyes long ago. “I’m- I’m not good enough for you, and I’m stupid to have never realized that! But even worse, now I’m sure that there isn’t a being in this world that could satisfy you, Taako.” His name was spat from Sazed’s mouth like a piece of gum that he had been chewing for far too long, tasteless and bland and hard.

Taako’s face morphed from remorse to contempt, his mouth a thin, pale line, shutting the book and setting it and his wand on the table with a heavy slam. “You want to know what I really think, Sazed? About all of this? About you?”

~~~

“I’ve known you for years, Taako. You were _nothing_ when we met, and we made this show _together_ . But you were always the star, bright and shining and needing everyone’s fucking eyes on you. But no one can really look at who you are, except for me. I know you better than anyone ever has, and anyone ever will. I can look at you and see that underneath that brilliance is _nothing_. There’s just a void there, that’s empty and wanting and hungers, and will never, ever be filled. What the show is missing, Taako, is heart and soul. Because obviously, you don’t have either.”

Sazed scrubbed his arms hard as he muttered to himself, the biting water of the lake he sat in lapping at his waist. He took pride in what he spun, now to himself. Words he promised himself every day he’d say to Taako when the time was right. But after the explosive argument the two of them had, their relationship had gone entirely cold. Despite lodging together while on their way to the next show, their discussions had gone from animated talks of future episodes to a few words exchanged only if needed. There was never a point where it felt right to tear Taako down, to drag Taako down to the low, dark place Sazed was sitting. So he ruminated, his feelings sitting in a pot with a rattling top, moments away from boiling over. It no longer felt right to just tear Taako down with words- the elf had poisoned him, weakening his ability to ever stand on his own again. It was only right to deal the same blow in kind.

_Poison._

Sazed looked at his slightly pruned fingers, stained with elderberry juice. In spite of everything, he still went out and picked those damn berries for Taako. Berries he knew he’d be using at the next show. Slowly, he found himself weaving together a plan.

He couldn’t. How many people would get hurt? But if he did, Taako could never, ever recover- whether he sampled the meal himself and perished or if the people who trusted him did so instead, he’d forever be known as a reckless murderer or the victim of careless, prideful showboating. And, it wouldn’t be Sazed’s fault anyways- if Taako was smart enough to learn magic but not wise enough to check if his ingredients were safe, then he deserves anything that came to him. 

Sazed could not make heads or tails of wizardry- he tried, watching Taako work his magic on stage, but it pretty much went over his head entirely, even when his former friend tried to explain what he’s doing. But Sazed understood alchemy. While he had originally started so he could emulate what Taako did on stage, he found himself surprisingly competent at the sciences in ways Taako could never be. His salves were potent enough to substitute healing magic- important, when the two of them were far away from any healer- but he had also been studying poisons. Over the next few days, as Glamour Springs drew ever closer, Sazed started cultivating a potent, insidious poison. He knew Arsenic wouldn’t just harm- it would kill, and anyone who survived would not be unscathed, forever plagued by its properties.

The night before the show, Taako approached Sazed as he was dozing off in front of his equipment. He was quiet for a moment, before speaking to him for the first time in days.

“Working hard on something big, huh?” There was a pause. Taako licked his lips, a hand reaching for the back of his neck. “The table’s not so great for sleeping, my dude. If you want to take a nap before we need to start prepwork in a few, you really should crash in a bed. I’ll even give you the top bunk, tonight. I know how much you always want to sleep there.”

Sazed didn’t respond, his eyes closed. Taako never apologized directly. This was probably as good as he'd get.

“I’ve been thinking about your proposal. Maybe you’re right, the Ol’ ‘Sizzling it up with Taako’ name might be getting a bit stale. So how about this- we do a trial run, tomorrow. You and me. I’ll call you out onto stage, you can do your alchemy shit, and if people like it, we’ll start integrating you more into the show.” Taako smiled at him, though Sazed was now too occupied with an internal war of who he was. There was Taako, the sun, bright and warm and bringing light to his dreary days, and there was Taako, a cold, overcast winter day, frigid and biting and distant when he needed him. He knew Taako like the back of his hand. Only one could be true, it was merely a matter of looking deep inside and choosing what is true, deep down.

Sazed scooted the chair out and stood up, stretching as he turned to Taako. “You know what? I think you have this one. We’ll talk logistics after the show, so we can make the first episode of Sizzling it up with Taako and Sazed something people would never forget.” Sazed climbed up the ladder, pulling back the cover as he looked at the table.

The arsenic sat in a vial, and he was faced with the consequences of what he’d do. This would be the death knell of not only Taako’s career, but also his own... and likely, the deaths of dozens of people. That would weigh on him forever. If it went without a hitch no one would ever know, but could he run away from his own conscience? But, he had already made his choice.

You’ve already made the jump, Sazed. You need to see this through to the end.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been hacking away at this for about 4 months now, picking it up and putting it down periodically. Finally, I feel like it's done. :)
> 
> This is the first piece I've finished in years. It's nice flexing new creative muscles for characters you've yet to touch.


End file.
